God’s Promise to Abram

God gave Abram two good reasons for courage
i) he promised to defend him (“I am your shield’) and
ii) he promised to be Abram’s “very great reward.”
When you fear what lies ahead remember that God will stay with you through difficult times and that he has promised you great blessings.
Just when Abram was despairing of ever having an heir, god promised descendants too numerous to imagine. God’s blessings are beyond our imaginations!
Although Abram had been demonstrating his faith through his actions, it was his belief in the Lord, not his actions that made Abram right with God. We too can have a right relationship with God by trusting him. Our outward actions- church attendance, prayers, and good deeds- will not by themselves make us right with God. A right relationship is based on faith- the heartfelt inner confidence that God is who he says he is and does what he says he will do. Right actions will follow naturally as by-products.

The verses that have touched our hearts while reading the chapter are as follows:
After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”

He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” And he believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.

Let’s Pray: Lord, it is in troubled times that we show the sincerest faith and understanding to You. Let us be, all times Your faithful servants, abider of your laws and love. Our Father, let only You guide me and help me be patient with your timings and decisions for me. Amen

Chapter 15: God’s Promise to Abram

1 After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”
2 But Abram said, “O Lord GOD, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”
3 And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.”
4 But the word of the LORD came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.”
5 He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”
6 And he believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.
7 Then he said to him, “I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess.”
8 But he said, “O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”
9 He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”
10 He brought him all these and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two.
11 And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
12 As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him.
13 Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know this for certain, that your offspring shall be aliens in a land that is not theirs, and shall be slaves there, and they shall be oppressed for four hundred years;
14 but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.
15 As for yourself, you shall go to your ancestors in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age.
16 And they shall come back here in the fourth generation; for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.
18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates,
19 the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites,
20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim,
21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”